Chapter VI.

THE WILL.
§1. The Will Winning its Freedom.
We return now to the consideration of that power in man with which we started — the Will. The student will remember that It was stated that it was the Will of the Self, of the individualised Self — indi- vidualised though as yet unconscious of its individualisation —which drew him into manifestation. Not by compulsion, not by external necessity, not by anything opposed to him from outside, but by the great Will of which his own Will is part — his Will individualised as a centre but not yet cut off by circumference of matter — pulsing in him as the life-blood of the mother pulses in the yet unborn child, he reaches forth towards manifestation, dimly
longing for the rich thrill of life enveiled in
409
410
A STUDV IN CONSCIOUSNESS.
matter, for the exercise of powers yearning for activity, for the experience of worlds tumultuously full of movenieni. That which consciously the Lixjos wills^the Logos willing to become incarnate in a universe— all the centres of individualised life within Him also will, though as it were blindly and groping towards a fuller life- It is the Will to live, to know, and that forth-going Will sets to manifestation.
We have seen that this Will, the Power of the Self, becomes what we call Desire on the denser planes of matter, and that, blinded by matter and unable to see its way, its direction is determined by the attractions and repulsions playing upon it from external objects. Hence we cannot say of the Self at this period that he is Self-directed ; he is directed by attractions and repulsions that touch him at his periphery. We have further seen that as Desire came into touch with Intelligence, and these two aspects of the Self played upon each other, emotions evolved, showing traces of their parentage, of their Desire- mother and of their Intelligence-father. And we have studied the methods by
which emotion may be controlled, put to its true uses, and thus rendered serviceable instead of dangerous in human evolution.
Wc have now to consider how this Will, ihe hidden Power which has ever moved lo activity though not yet controlling activity, slowly wins to frvedum. that is to I Self-determination. In a moment we shall [ consider what is meant by thin word • freedom."
Essentially and fundamentally free, in its
Oritfin as the Power of the Self, Will has
become bound and limited in its attempts
1 lo master the matter into which the Self
has entered. We need not shrink from
L aayin}; that matter masters the Self, not
the Self matter, and this it does by virtue
of the Self rcgardinf; matter as himself,
identifying; himself with it ; as he wills
, throuj^h it. thinks through it. acts through
I U, it becomes to him verily himself, and
[ deluded he cries : " I am this !" and while it
limits him and binds him. he. feeling it to
be himself, cries : " I am free." Yet is this
mastering of the Self by matter but r
temporary thing, for the matter is ever
changing, coming and going, impermanent,
412
A STUDY IN CONSCIOUSNESS.
and is ever being shaped and unconsciously drawn round and rejected by the unfolding forces of the SeJf, oerinanent amid the impermanent.
Let us con evolution in stronger than the pleasant
painful; in whit
and reason has
stage in human mory has grown ctive outgoing to rawing from the ence mies Desire, ed over impulse.
The result of the age-long evolution is to
be reaped, and part of that result is freedom.
While the Will is expressing itself as Desire, determined in its direction by out- side attractions, it is obviously not free, but very distinctly bound, just as any living creature might be dragged by a force greater than its own force in a direction tinchoscn by it, so is the Will dragged away by the attraction of objects, pulled along the path which promises pleasure, which is agreeable to pursue ; it is not active as a Self-determined force, but on the contrary the Self is being dragged away by an external and compelling attraction.
Tm wiu.
♦13
No more vivid picture of the Self, r these conditions, can be given than i before quoted from an ancient Hindu re. in which the Self is limned as the rider in a chariot, and the senses, attracted by pleasure-giving objects, are the ungovernable horses that carry away the chariot of the body and the helpless rider within it. Althoujjh the Will be the very Power of the Self, so long as the Self b being carried away by theiie unruly horses, he is emphatically bound and not ' free. It is idle to speak of a free Will in a I man who is the slave of the objects around I him. He is ever in bondage, he can I exercise no choice ; for though we may I think of such a one as choosing to follow ' the path along which attractions draw him, there is, in truth, no choice nor thought I of choice. So long as attractions and repulsions determine the path, all talk of f freedom is empty and foolish. Even though man feels himself as choosing the I desirable object, the feeling of freedom is illusory, for he is dragged by the attractive- ness of the object and the longing for pleasure in himself. He is as much, or as
A STUDY IN CONSCIOUSNESS.
little, free as the iron is free to move to the magnet. The movement is determined by the strength of the mag^net and the nature of the iron answering to its attraction.
To understand what we mean by freedom of the Will, we must clear away a prehminary difficulty which faces us in the word "choice." When we appear to be free to choose, does that so-called freedom of choice mean freedom of Will ? Or is it not true to say that freedom of choice only means that no externa! force compels us to elect one or another of alternatives.^ But the important question that lies behind this is : ■■ What makes us choose ? " Whether we are free to act when we have chosen is a very different thing from whether we are " free " to choose, or whether the choice is determined by something that lies behind.
How often we hear it said as a proof of the freedom of the Will : " I am free to choose whether I will leave the room or not ; I am free to choose whether 1 will drop this weight or not." But such argument is beside the question. No one denies the power of a person, physically unconstrained, to leave a room or to stay
THK WILL. 415
in it, to drop a wcijjht or to uphold it. The
' ioteresting question is: "Why do I
When we analyse the choice,
t that it is determined by motive, and
the deterniinisi argues : " Your muscles
can uphold or drop the weight, but if there
is a valuable and fragile article underneath,
you will not choose lo drop ii. That which
determines your choice not to drop it is
the presence of that fragile object Your
choice is determined by motives, and the
I strongest motive directs it" The question
I not : " Am I free to act ?" but : " Am I
I Irce to will ? " And we see clearly that
I die Will is determined by the strongest
I motive, and that, so far as that goes, the
i dctcrminist is right.
In truth, this fact that the Will is deter-
[ mined by the strongest motive is the
I basis of all organised Society, of all law.
I of all penalty, of all responsibility, of all
education. The man whose will is not
I thus determined is irresponsible, insane.
H e is a creature who cannot be appealed
I to. cannot be reasoned with, cannot be
relied on, a person without reason, logic,
or memory, without the attributes
amenable to leo- *
IS an energy j
pushing- to actio
reason, without
called "free,"bij
by " freedom of
determined by tl
be taken for grai
of the freedom i
What then is
the Will ? It cc
a relative, freedo
rated Self is a p
whole must be gr
all its parts. Am
Self and of the
ensheathed. No
bodies are in a r
within law, can m(
41?
[ and in this variety and endlessness offer ! possibilities and thus a free- . of movemeni within a rigidity of And the Self also is in a realm [ «rf" law, nay is himself the very law, as I being part of that nature which is the ' Being of all beings. No separated Self ' may escape from the Self which is all, and,
however freely he may move with regard 1 to other separated Selves, he may not. ' cannot, move outside the life which informs [ him, which is his nature and his law. in I which he lives and moves. The parts I constrain not the parts, the separated 1 Selves constrain not the separated Selves ; I but the whole constrains and controls the ' parts, the Self constrains and controls the
Selves. Yet even here, since the Selves E«re the Self, freedom startH up from i amid apparent bondage, and " none else I compels."
I'his freedom of a part as regards other ' parts while in bondage to the whole may f be seen clearly in physical nature. We arc I parts of a world whirling through space
and revolving also on its own axis, turning
eastwards ever. Of this we know naught.
4l8 A STUDY IN CONSCIOUSNESS.
since its motion carries us with it. and all moves together and at once, and in one direction. Eastwards we turn with our world, and naught we can do will change our direction. Vet with regard to each other and to the places about us, we can move freely and change our relative positions. I may go to the west of a person or a place, though we are both whirling eastwards ceaselessly. And of the motion of a part with regard to a